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Thread: duh, really ... ya think ?

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    Default duh, really ... ya think ?

    (snip)"May 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

    “We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

    Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

    The president pledged to work with Congress to shore up entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare and said he was confident that the House and Senate would pass health-care overhaul bills by August."(snip)

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    Default Re: duh, really ... ya think ?

    This should be reassuring to you Mel. He's not as clueless as you thought? It's nice to know the guy in charge of the whole enchilada is smart, and has smart people helping him.

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    Default Re: duh, really ... ya think ?

    Quote Originally Posted by hockeybobby View Post
    This should be reassuring to you Mel. He's not as clueless as you thought? It's nice to know the guy in charge of the whole enchilada is smart, and has smart people helping him.

    bwahahahahahahahaha

    <cough> <catches breathe>

    bwahahahahahahahaha
    Quote Originally Posted by The Snark View Post
    But then I suppose the sort of people who write this kind of crap generally don't allow their opinions to be tainted by things like "facts" and "reality".
    Distortion becomes somehow pure in its wildness
    The note that began all can also destroy

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    Default Re: duh, really ... ya think ?

    Quote Originally Posted by hockeybobby View Post
    This should be reassuring to you Mel. He's not as clueless as you thought? It's nice to know the guy in charge of the whole enchilada is smart, and has smart people helping him.
    It's not a question of brains, Bobby. Congress has known for over a decade that Medicare and Social Security are both going broke. Not only haven't they done anything, they refuse to even discuss it. It's far more a question of political courage to do what everyone KNOWS is necessary and KNOWS will be painful.

    The pain that would have been involved had Congress done the necessary when times were relatively good will seem like Nirvana when the real crunch comes. The dates by which Medicare and Social Security will go broke have been moved up to 2018 and 2037 respectively. To date, nobody has proposed raising the retirement age, and increasing contributions, and cutting benefits, and means testing; ALL of which will be necessary.

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    Default Re: duh, really ... ya think ?

    ^^^ and to speak to a broader issue, ALL of these approaches boil down to short term thinking on the part of gov't. It's far easier to print and sell new treasury bonds that can be paid off over a period of 5 to 20 years than it is to raise taxes next year. It is far easier to worry about current year funding for Medicaid, Medicare and SSI and 'kick the can down the road' in regard to increased taxes, reduced benefits, means testing of benefit eligibility etc.

    But in the final analysis, all of these involve huge levels of 'deficit spending' in the long term. As such, the gov't and taxpayers have few choices. Either tax rates must go through the roof, or spending / benefits must be cut, or both. And, subjectively speaking, increasing tax rates is becoming more and more implausible as the total levels of federal + state + local taxation are already reaching levels that are prompting tax-minimizing changes in the economic behavior of the taxed (which in turn depress the economy even further).

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